**** Home Depot

I must confess, I do sometimes shop the big-box stores, especially the big home centers. Lately, we've been leaning more towards Lowe's, because the customer service at Home Despot (as we affectionately call it) tends to be so appallingly bad. I also judged Lowe's to be a slightly more socially responsible company than Home Depot, based on the descriptions of both on the Responsible Shopper site run by Green America. (The other shopping guide I use, Better World Shopper, gives Home Depot a grade of B-minus; Lowe's isn't rated.) But I always assumed that the differences between the two were fairly minor, and that I wasn't doing that much social good by choosing Lowe's. So I was pleased—tickled, in fact—to see an article today that gave me another reason to feel good about avoiding Home Depot: "Home Depot Called Arrogant, Ordered to Pay Inventor Millions More." Call it schadenfreude if you will, but I can't help feeling a bit gleeful to see a huge, arrogant corporation get what's coming to it.